


The Poison in Your Veins

by whizzy



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Monster Hunters, Blood Drinking, Dark Magic, F/M, Giant Spiders, Hints of dubcon, Mind Control, More hurt less comfort, Transformation, Vampires, elves as supernatural creatures, laketown conspiracy, the line of Durin used to be much better at this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-04-29 05:30:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5117312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whizzy/pseuds/whizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is guardian to a besieged and rotting dynasty, duty-bound and well served by her predator's instincts.  He is one of Durin's Folk, hunters of renown until calamity destroyed much of the bloodline and cast the survivors from their home.  Their descendents roam the land, carrying on the fight as best they can while hiding the secret that once made their kind so formidable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a creepy Halloween type thing based on this [ art/idea by withlovefromgondor](http://withlovefromgondor.tumblr.com/post/131211428074/subtextsays-not-finished-with-kili-and-fili-yet). As tends to happen, I got carried away. Expect some violence and gore.

|| NOW ||

 

She is one the few permitted to hunt, for she possesses a degree of restraint that is unusual among her kind, and rarer still in one so young.

Whispers fly behind her back: She has yet to fully forsake her past; She was not properly bloodied; For all that she has slain multitudes across the centuries, she has never known the ecstasy of draining a living heart. There is enough truth to the rumors that she might be subject to suspicion and scorn had she not proven her loyalty time and again.

She prefers to hunt alone. The spiders she tracks this night are not prey, however. They are vermin, fell creatures loosed by the enemy of her kin. Mindless, fearless, hunger is their only drive, a voracity that cannot be satisfied.

She will return them to ash.

The pack is not a large one, though it is strange it should roam so far to the north while still remaining beneath the eaves of the Mirkwood. There should be nothing to draw it here. The settlement of men lies to the south and east, while the forest here is a snarl of vigilant vines and thorns. The vegetation bends to the will of the Woodland King; and even Tauriel, who is his get and carries his mark upon her always, would have difficulty penetrating far into his defenses.

She can see well enough by stars alone, but the moon tonight is low and large, clothed in tendrils of cloud. Its light casts the spiders' trail in stark relief. They are not difficult to track when moving through the canopy, for they are lumbering and lack the intelligence to conceal their passage. On the ground they are more vulnerable but also quicker. It won't be long before the pack overtakes its quarry, if it hasn't already.

A cry reaches her ears. It is not the expected shriek of fear, nor one of pain, but lusty roar: a battlecry. Sounds of a struggle erupt ahead. She knows the clatter of fangs meeting steel all too well, and the squelch of a weapon striking undead flesh, but her kin are never so _vocal_. Any other creature that would stand against a spider pack should be approached with caution, so she leaps into the trees, moving swiftly from branch to gnarled branch until she is close enough to survey the scene.

Two man-shaped figures stand back to back, drawn swords already dripping with ichor. One smaller spider lies dismembered at their feet, another wounded and twitching, while the last and largest circles, chittering in frustration.

Fortune shines on her tonight. She recognizes the men from before, the brothers, one bright of hair and one dark. There is no way to assist them without making her presence known, and she is not certain she could subdue both at once without blemishing them, well-armed and coordinated as they are. Best to let them finish the spiders unaided, stalk them afterwards and find an opportunity to separate them.

She will take the bright one, she decides. Hair like gold, like the sun. Her king will be pleased. The dark one with the kindly smile she will glamor and send back to the village of men. He will grieve but he will live.

The men speak to each other in a coarse language she does not know, forming a plan. They split apart, the dark shouting and waving his arms to draw the spider's attention while the bright angles away, pulling something from a bandolier across his chest. It is a firepot, she thinks -- a small one about the size of his fist but similar to the type her kin employ against swarms of invading spiders and ghouls. He drops to one knee, striking flint on the pommel of his sword in a struggle to light the pot.

Here she can help. Tauriel is one who has tasted the blood of their sometime-allies, the terrible enchanters of Lorien, lending her a fraction of their power. She summons a spark, casts it to light the cord; and if the bright one notices that the flame burns a more sullen red than usual, he is too busy taking aim to comment. He looses with a shout and the pot flies true, shattering on impact to coat the spider in liquid fire.

It is not enough, she sees at once. The pot was too small; the spider will be slow to burn, feeling neither pain nor alarm to distract it from its target. It rears above the dark one, who hacks at the grasping limbs, severing two for all the good it does him. The bright one calls a warning too late. His brother is thrown down, pinned beneath a flailing monstrosity that drips gobs of flame, razor fangs a hand's-breadth from his face.

Tauriel grips the hilt of her knife, but there is little to be done from a distance; and the bright one blocks any throw she might make, leaping at the spider with his sword flashing. He opens its abdomen, mixing ichor with the splashing fire, but the wounded spider has worked its remaining legs beneath its prey, clutching the dark one in a deadly embrace.

He fights valiantly, raw strength and desperation barely holding the fangs at bay as the spider bears down with its weight, squeezing him closer. His sword slips, and he casts it aside to brace the fangs with his hands. Tauriel scents blood on the air and knows at once that he has been cut despite his heavy gloves.

The vitality pounding through his veins is heady enough, but his fear adds an exquisite edge. For a moment it is all she can do to clutch the tree trunk and fight down her rising thirst, her own delicate fangs bared. She can only watch as the bright one slams into the spider with his shoulder. The dark one thrashes his legs and together the three -- men and abomination -- go tumbling over.

It will be finished soon. The bright one hacks more limbs, freeing his brother enough to straddle the weakening spider; and the dark one uses his new leverage to pry the fangs apart, howling in triumph when he gives a last heave that cracks open the monster's face.

Tauriel's cry of warning is lost in the brothers' cheers. They don't know their adversary as she does -- neither is aware of the exposed stinger until the spider spasms, curling in on itself and driving the barb into the dark one's side. The spider is damaged, true, and the barb a last resort, less effective than fangs at delivering venom, but a lesser dose only means that the man will linger in agony.

Call her sentimental, foolish even. She truly had desired that he live.

The bright one gasps a word that is likely his brother's name, disbelief writ on his face. She decides that she will take and spell him before grief has had a chance to harden in his heart. Her king will enjoy it less, but this is a mercy she can perform.

Rising, the dark one finishes hacking apart the spider with his brother. Blood flows freely down his side, the taint now mixed in it burning her senses. Although she no longer desires him she can still admire his endurance and stubbornness. He takes one swaying step apart, sheathing his sword, then another before crashing to his knees. The bright one is there to ease his collapse to the ground, inspecting the wound even as they speak, one rapidly and the other haltingly in their strange tongue. The exchange has the sound of an argument, and when the dark one grips his brother's arm, she wonders if he pleads for the relief of a quick end.

Tauriel makes to descend from her perch. What is it to her to dispense one more death? She would not have the bright one go to captivity with his brother's blood on his hands.

She alights on the forest floor, thankfully too distant yet to be noticed, for she is startled when the dark one's heartbeat slows drastically, then stutters and halts. There was no opening of a vein to accompany it, no fresh outpour of blood. A blade driven into the heart, perhaps?

Drawing near, she hears the last bit of breath leave his lungs, but the sound is wrong, a rasp rather than a sigh. Then, impossibly, another heartbeat, so ponderous that she does not recognize it at first for what it is. She has never known living flesh to make such a noise, like the dull scrape of a bootheel on exposed rock.

The bright one stands without warning, turns and strides away from the scene even as he sheathes his filthy sword. Tauriel crouches, hiding in her cloak as he passes uncomfortably near to her position, but he is so intent he might not notice if he were to stumble over her. It dawns on her that he means to leave his brother, perhaps to seek aid, but he must know that he will return to a corpse -- if there is anything left of his brother's body to find and bury. There are many things drawn by the scent of blood that would prey on a wounded man abandoned on the forest floor.

She should follow the bright one, catch him before he goes too far, but curiosity pulls her to the brother. He lies curled on his side, so still and pale that she wonders at the sound she mistook for a heartbeat, for surely there remains no life in him. She would sense it. Even as she watches, color retreats further from his flesh, leaving him grey beneath the stubble of his beard, his lips ashy.

It is a mark of the venom, she thinks. So too must be the the rapid cooling of his body.

She is wrong.

His skin darkens even more, growing mottled and opaque. The hair plastered long and lank about his face likewise changes, taking on an appearance like aged rope. Even the blood on his side crusts dry and grey, flaking away when she touches it. She tries to shift the arm tucked against his chest, but his limbs have locked. His cheek is unyielding beneath the press of her fingertip; and when she puts her whole hand there, feeling nose and lips, brow and eyelids, it is as if she inspects a statue.

Memory stirs. She knows that if she tried to feed from him, her fangs would break on his throat.

He has become stone.

 

 

|| THEN ||

 

The inn is crowded tonight, as inns always are when there are strangers in town. Granted, he is always the stranger, and could not say for certain what is normal and what is not in any of the dozens of settlements he's entered, but there are signs. Wary curiosity hangs thick in the air, along with a haze of pipe smoke and the reek of fish. Too many patrons are nursing their drinks, unwilling to spend more coin than necessary while they linger to overhear news of the outside, maybe a story or two. He's caught some of the youngsters openly eyeing his weapons -- the elders are more circumspect -- but none have been bold enough to approach his table.

Fili returns, sloshing two meager wooden bowls as he sits.

"Well?"

"Fish stew."

"That's not what I meant." Kili wrinkles his nose but digs into his portion anyway. They've gone too many days on dry rations to turn down a hot meal, no matter how unappetizing.

Fili leans close and lowers his voice. "Uncle's not here, and there's no sign he's been here."

"Maybe we're early."

"If anything we fell behind schedule dispatching that wight." Fili shakes his head, spooning through his bowl without yet having taken a bite.

The stew is not terrible, though it would be tiresome to eat it every day, as Kili suspects the lakemen might. "Lost or sidetracked, then."

"Or both knowing him. Could be days before he stumbles into town. We might as well put the time to use. What have you found?"

Kili flicks his eyes to the right; Fili looks while pretending to scratch his ear. "There's our loose tongue." The lad against the wall has been yammering to anyone who will listen the whole time Kili's been watching. He's the type nobody would trust with real secrets, but he'll probably be eager to share what little he does know. "And the old woman by the hearth." She's been silent, huddled in her thin shawl, but he's caught her appraising him with shrewd eyes.

Fili nods without looking this time. The hearth is generally a coveted spot in establishments such as this -- perhaps more so in one built over a lake, with the chill wind blowing off the water coming right up through the floorboards. The woman's clothes are very poor indeed, and she has neither food nor drink. That she's retained her warm place without spending a penny suggests she's either well-liked or respected -- or feared. "You take the granny, then. I'll take the boy."

"Why am I always stuck sweet-talking the grannies?"

"Because you do it so well," Fili says. "And because I dislike it when they mistake me for a long-dead son or husband in their dotage."

So does Kili, but he's learned to smile and pretend and hold their frail hands in his while he questions them. Remembering lost loved ones can dredge up other forgotten memories. He hates when the memories are distressing, but Thorin made it clear that the knowledge their clan lost must be collected anew if they’re to rise to prominence again. Too often they face unfamiliar monsters, claiming narrow victory thanks only to hints and clues sifted from local lore.

There is one benefit to arriving before Thorin. He holds his own secrets, those he keeps even from his closest kin. The town on the lake must be important, else he would not have arranged for his best hunters to converge here. He would not say his reason, but neither had he thought to forbid Kili and Fili from trying to learning it on their own.

 

 

|| NOW ||

 

Tauriel makes a pyre in the same small clearing as the stone man. If left unburned, the spiders would only be raised again by the magic of their master the necromancer, misshapen but still able to do harm.

(Stories tell of weapons with the power to visit true and final death on any being, though none have been seen for an age -- if they existed at all.)

She is smeared with ichor and the detritus of the forest floor by the time she has thrown the last of the spider parts on the blaze. The stench would be unbearable if she wasn't inured to it, but there are some creatures the thick, oily smoke draws rather than drives away. She is not deep enough in the Mirkwood to rely on her king's wards for protection, so she takes to the trees to keep watch.

Only a few hours remain of the night. Day never truly permeates the forest's gloom, so she will have some shelter from the abhorrent sun. Its touch will not kill her, merely sap her strength and dull her mind. She will be no match for the brother when he returns, but she cannot take him as prey, not now that she has an inkling of what he might be. Instead she will watch and follow. It has become vital that she learn all she can and report it back to her king.

She scatters what is left of the fire just before dawn breaks. Ash drifts about the clearing, catching in her hair and settling on the stone man like a foul snow. She brushes him clean as an excuse to study him again, feeling the grainy texture of his skin. When she raps his chin with her knife hilt it makes a bright, solid sound; she presses her ear to his chest and does it again and again, trying to vary the pitch and produce the clearest note.

Musical statues will never set a fashion at court. She wonders if the stone man is hollow, if there is space reserved in his lungs for air. His nostrils are closed off, sealed as a true statue's would be, and his ears as well. It _would_ be troublesome to awake after a long sleep and discover that insects and worse have crawled inside you and taken up residence.

Will he wake? She thinks that he went to stone for protection, to help stave off the spider's venom, but she does not know if he chose to change or simply knew it was imminent, his kind's response to injury. He may not be able to wake on his own; it may require spells or potions or charms to rouse him, which his brother has gone to fetch. He may already be dead. The malice in his veins is not a simple poison but magic in nature. Would it care that the body it corrupts is rock rather than flesh?

It does not occur to her to that he might have awareness of his surroundings until the chest beneath her hand flexes minutely. She was inspecting his gear, digging through his pockets out of idle curiosity, trusting to her senses to warn her should he begin to stir; but she can detect no life in him even as his torpid heart grinds its first beat, and the first whisper of air passes between his frozen lips.

Tauriel flies to the trees, crouching on a low branch, near enough to be easily spotted were it not for her cloak. Even as she watches, life returns to the man between one heartbeat and the next. The vitality she remembers is gone, the venom's caustic scent more pronounced, and she knows at once that stone is indeed no refuge from the necromancer's taint.

The man sits up with a groan. His glove comes away red when he prods his wound, and he smears the blood between his fingers in an almost thoughtful fashion. His glassy eyes seem to make little sense of his surroundings; he calls once for his brother but barely glances at the remains of the pyre, doesn't hunt for the presence of the one who made it. He goes to stone again without warning, jaw clenched and expression set in a grimace.

Tauriel hopes his transformation at least shelters him from pain.

Though the horizon is hidden, she knows the moment the sun rises. Its mere presence in the sky makes her temples pound -- far worse than the sickening sensation of traversing flowing water -- and every moment is a struggle against the dangerous lethargy day brings.

Twice more the man wakes, and twice more he retreats to stone. Each time he is weaker, fevered and disoriented. His calls for aid grow more desperate, his fear -- his _mortality_ \-- sharp enough to mask the venom's burn. The second time she almost climbs down from her perch, lured by his shallow breaths and ragged moans. She could not feed from him, but she wonders if she could taste death’s approach on his flushed skin.

Hours pass with no sign of the brother. As nightfall draws closer, Tauriel concedes that he may never return. It does not take a full day to travel to and from the town of men, and she knows nowhere else he might have gone for aid. There are worse things than spiders to encounter alone in the woods; it is possible he met his own end.

She may need to have her answers from the stone man himself, and he is fast running out of time.

 

 

|| THEN ||

 

Fili works the common-room with ease, slipping in a comment here, a joke there, until he's joined the flow of conversation. He's very good at saying a lot while giving away little; he dutifully answers the questions he can concerning the outside world while dancing around the matter of his and Kili's business in the lake town.

If Thorin's called his best hunters, Kili reasons there must be something to hunt. He watches the crowd closely when Fili begins to drop hints, never naming any monster outright but describing the troubles they've seen plague other settlements: disemboweled livestock, unfamiliar tracks or claw marks, unexplained sicknesses, folk seeing or hearing strange things, disappearances...

There, the mention of disappearances makes the elders purse their lips and turn away, while some of the youngsters squirm in their seats. The talkative lad had been coaxed to their table; he bites his lip, gaze shifting between Fili and Kili, on the verge of blurting something he knows he shouldn't.

Kili prompts, "What of the forest to the west?"

Unease reigns for a moment, filled only with muffled coughs and the tense shifting of bodies. Finally someone responds, "What of it?"

"On our way into town, we saw what we thought was a game trail-" He and Fili had known damned well it was no game trail. "-and we followed it. After a mile or so it dumped us in a clearing. What we found there was... odd."

Suspense permeates the room, but no curiosity. Some of the townsfolk at least know about the shackles, heavy iron things chained to grotesque trees, pitted from exposure but well-oiled as if they see regular use. Those who don't know are smart enough not to ask.

"Nothing good comes of that forest," someone says, drawing a ward against evil over their heart.

Another adds, "Damned inhospitable place.”

"It's no concern to me. Can't row my boat nor cast my net for all the trees," a third says, and the crowd laughs nervously.

Kili would bet it is the whole town's concern. Building over a lake must be difficult. So much wood, very little stone. He's noticed that the inn is one of the few buildings to boast a proper chimney, and even though it's worked stone he can still sense it well enough to know its foundation was painstakingly raised off the lake bottom. It would be too heavy otherwise, buckle or collapse the platform that supports the rest of the inn.

Living over water would not make it easier to launch a boat or haul in a catch. A pier is a pier. True, there's room to expand without clearing land, but trees would need to be felled anyway for building material. There is but one bridge from shore to town, a bottleneck carefully guarded, but a gated stockade would offer the same protection -- save against creatures that are loathe to cross flowing water.

He signs _undead_ to Fili, who strokes his mustache in agreement. Before either of them can pry further, though, the lad sitting opposite cracks under the awkward mood and throws out a little desperately, to change the topic, "Did you come up from the south, then? I would have guessed you'd come down from the mou- from the, uh, north."

A murmur of displeasure ripples through the crowd, and the lad sinks in his chair, turning scarlet and looking like he wishes he could swallow his tongue.

By the hearth, the old woman is still hiding in her shawl. She winds and pulls the end of it through her fingers again and again, pensive and surprisingly dexterous. She will not meet Kili's eye, but by the secretive smile lingering about her pinched mouth, she knows he is watching.

"We did not come from the mountain," Fili says, "but our course may take us there, when we continue on. Tell me about it."

It's as if a geas is broken, the townsfolk speaking over each other in their eagerness to tell the unpleasant tale.

"The mountain is haunted."

"-cursed-"

"It's guarded by a great serpent."

"-by terrible magic."

The old woman nods very slightly, as if humming to herself.

"Goblins dwell in the depths."

"A three-headed hound-"

"Sweet music that lures the unwary-"

She sighs and picks at her shawl; and Kili thinks she has lost interest until she offers, "I'll tell you what's in the mountain." Her raspy voice is firm for all that it lacks strength, and the other voices still in anticipation. Basking a moment in the stifling quiet, she sweeps her rheumy gaze about the room. _"Death,"_ she pronounces at last. "Many go there, none return."

A gaunt, weasely man snorts, and soon the crowd is twittering, relief mingled with disappointment.

“That's it?”

“Tell us something we don't know, you old crone!”

"Ah, she's all piss and wind."

"It's not true," the lad at their table insists, but he fails to capture much of an audience. It seems heckling the old woman is better entertainment than listening to his blather.

"What isn't true?" Fili asks.

"People come back from the mountain. Old Tomas went there and returned. I heard the story from his cousin, who heard it from Tomas on his deathbed. He was deep in the passages when his lantern blew out and wouldn't relight."

Kili only half pays attention, watching the old woman try and fail to stay aloof, until finally she stands. Pulling the shawl closer around her, she begins to thread her way across the room.

Fili says, "Go on.”

"Well. Tomas might have wandered lost down there until he starved if not for the woman. The most beautiful he'd ever seen, he said, tall and pale with a river of red hair. She was dressed in a shift and barefoot, never made a sound. Vanished if he drew too near, but always reappeared.”

 _Apparition, hallucination, or fabrication?_ Kili wonders.

“Led Tomas back to the surface, she did. He got right on his knees and kissed the dirt and when he looked up she was gone for good.”

The old woman's path brings her very close to their table. She pauses there, standing behind the lad's shoulder where he can't see her, and murmurs, "Tomas was a decent man. If any deserved to be spared, it was him."

The lad twitches and twists around in his seat, but the woman ignores him and moves on, shuffling for the door.

 _Follow,_ Fili signs, as if Kili wasn't already rising to do it. It's for Kili's benefit too when he folds his hands on the table and asks the lad, "If it's so dangerous, why does anyone go there? What do they seek in the mountain?"

There's a good chance the boy doesn't know, and a fair chance the woman does.

 

 

|| NOW ||

 

The more she thinks on it, the more convinced Tauriel becomes. It should be the stone man. He is weak, susceptible, though she may not need to glamor him to learn what she wants. She might tease it from his fevered mind -- provided she can keep him conscious. The brother would fight her influence; and it is not certain he would know as much. The contrast in their looks suggests they might not be full brothers, or even blood kin at all. The bright one might not have the stone-gift -- if gift it is and not curse.

The next time the dark one wakes, she is waiting for him.

He blinks and clutches at her as if to prove to himself that she is solid and real. “You,” he mumbles before slumping in a coughing fit that leaves him trembling, mouth stained with red flecks. “How? Fili? Fili!”

“Later,” Tauriel says. “Night approaches. We must get you to shelter.”

He manages to shake his head. “Find my brother.”

"You must not return to stone," she warns, lacing the words with a whisper of power to ensure she will be obeyed. Taking up his water skin, she pricks her thumb on her fang and dribbles in a few drops of her blood.

The stone man will believe only what she wants him to: in his mind and memory he will see her sprinkle in dried herbs from a pouch at her belt.

"It will fortify you. Drink." Pressing the skin to his lips, she watches his throat work to swallow. She has no experience with this, doesn't know how much is safe to give him. She is not even certain it will affect him -- he is not entirely human -- but it is the only thing she knows to try.

His breathing steadies, but it is impossible to say yet if the improvement is real or illusory. Whether or not his pain is truly lessened, he will believe that it is. He realizes that he is leaning into her side and sits up a little, wiping his mouth. "I heard the townsfolk... _Are_ you a witch?"

They see what she allows them to, but the conclusions drawn are their own. “Something like that."

“Did my brother send you?”

“He didn't need to.” Tauriel rises slowly, feigning stiff joints. She's long ago learned that it's easier to pretend than it is to disguise appearance and movement both. “Stand up.”

He hesitates, visibly appraising his remaining strength. “I don't know if-”

“You can.”

“I can,” he agrees, and believes that he does stand, though Tauriel more hauls him to his feet.

“There is a cave I know, not far.” The cave is quite far. “You will lean on me and we will walk together. And don't you worry about these old bones. I'm more sturdy than I look.”

They do stumble a short ways through the underbrush, the man all but hanging from Tauriel's shoulder, her arm clamped around his waist.

He will remember no more of the journey, for she picks him up to carry him, telling him, “Sleep.”

He nestles against her as a child would. She knows because long ago she was that child, embarrassed to clutch her beautiful and ethereal rescuer with her grubby hands. Legolas would only carry her thus once, on the night she first came to his father's crumbling palace; he shied even from touching her in the years she spent as his page and companion. She had not fully understood the temptation she presented, not until the night she was secretly called to Thranduil's chambers and ushered into her second life.

The others had respected their prince's claim on her, but what the king wants he takes.

 

 

|| THEN ||

 

The laketown is a cramped maze of walkways and ramshackle structures. Still, it should not be so easy for one old woman to evade Kili's detection. He'd spared but a moment to gather his weapons, yet by the time he exits the inn she is nowhere in sight. He wastes minutes searching fruitlessly before he remembers to check the waterways. She could have taken a boat, or ducked into one of the nearby buildings. Either way, he's not about to return empty-handed -- Fili would laugh, with good reason -- so he dons a pleasant expression and approaches the first person he sees.

"Good evening.”

The fisherman barely glances up from mending a net. “Nothing good about it, stranger.”

Kili keeps the smile but loses the pleasantness, showing his teeth. “I’m looking for someone, an old woman.” He pauses. It's odd, he spent the evening watching her yet he's hard-pressed to describe her. “Green shawl, sits by the inn hearth. Do you know her?”

The man spits on the pier to demonstrate his opinion of the woman. “I might. What's it worth to you?”

“My gratitude,” Kili says. When that fails, he reaches for his purse to toss the man a coin. "And a warm drink. You look like you could use one, _friend."_

The coin disappears into the man's vest. "Aye, I know of her."

"Know where she lives?"

"Nope."

"How about a name?"

"If I knew it I'd as soon forget it. She's not decent folk, if you follow my meaning."

He does. "Yes, well, I still intend to find her."

"Is it true you're a hunter? Are you going to..." The man lifts his chin and draws a line across his throat.

"My business is none of your concern," Kili says firmly.

"She’s a land dweller, that's all anyone knows. Try at the gatehouse," he calls after Kili, who's already striding away. "Maybe one of the guards can point you in the right direction, at least."

Kili runs, and he still doesn't catch the woman until she's nearly across the bridge to the shore. "Wait. Hey you!" He thinks her hearing must be fine -- after all, she caught the lad's story about Tomas -- so she's likely ignoring him. He'd do the same in her position if chased down by a well-armed outsider, so he's careful not to touch her, slipping around to cut off her path instead. "Please wait, I just want to talk to you."

She halts, holding her ground. Up close, she is taller than he expected, able to look him in the eye despite being stooped with age.

Kili is the one to yield a step backwards so they aren't standing almost atop each other. Her face is rather forgettable, he decides. No strong features, nor weak, just timeworn. "Remember me? From the inn." When she frowns he says, "Sorry, of course you do."

"You have questions."

"Yes."

She warns, "You may not like my answers."

"That depends on whether or not you speak truthfully."

"You weren't drawn here by the mountain," she guesses, "but now you are... curious."

He doesn't know why they were summoned. Thorin may very well have designs on the mountain. Durin's Folk need not fear navigating deep places as ordinary men do. "What do men seek there?”

“That which greedy men are always willing to throw their lives away chasing.” She looks Kili up and down as if for the first time, making her unspoken question clear: Is he a greedy man?

The warning is twofold. Greedy men would also risk their lives defending a prize they feel is theirs, even if it's naught but a fable. As outsiders, he and Fili should tread with even more delicacy and caution than usual. "You said death lies in the depths. What guise does it take?"

The woman's eyes shine with something like satisfaction. "Clever boy, knows which questions are worth asking."

Kili can't imagine sweet-talking her or petting her hand. He finds he much prefers this odd dance of wits. "My brother and I have seen death in many shapes, and none."

She nods at the sword sheathed at his hip. “Seen it and dealt it both.”

That wasn't a question, but he answers regardless. “Aye. We’re sworn against the evils that would prey on the weak and the innocent.”

She tilts her head. “Do you know the purpose of the shackles in the clearing?"

He has suspicions, none of them pleasant.

"Laketown gives tithe to the forest. The weak and the innocent are simply abandoned. The hale and guilty are tethered so they may not escape their fate.”

Kili has seen that too before, folk turning out their own in the hope that whatever dwells in the dark will take what is offered and no more. The lake town itself may be an unattractive target to the mindless undead, but the outlying farms that supply its crops and livestock are vulnerable. "How long has the vile practice persisted?”

“Longer than even I can remember.“ The woman drums a bony finger on her chest, where she still clutches the shawl tight about her. “Would you lay blame on the monsters or the townsfolk?”

"Both. Although... monsters are bound by their nature. Few can help what they are." Surely there are some in the town who would call Kili monster if they knew his secret.

"Hmph." The woman shoos at Kili. "I must be off now, clever boy. My home is far and my bones are weary."

It's because she hasn't asked for a thing that Kili reaches for his purse so readily. "Wait. I can't escort you home but I can put you up for the night at the inn. Have a hot meal and sleep in a warm bed. Leave in the morning when it's safe."

The woman is clearly taken aback by the offer, though she does not entertain it even for a second. Apparently she is not too poor for pride. "Thank you, but no. I don't fear the forest; I'll manage as I always have."

"You should fear it," Kili says, refusing to budge. "Tonight of all nights, with a hunter's moon rising. Even I'll be glad to weather it behind a sturdy door."

"The forest robbed me long ago of all I had worth taking.”

“Save your life.”

She does not respond, simply gazes at Kili with the unnatural calm and patience of the very old, until at last he steps aside to let her pass.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Any second now he will turn on her. She will know by the excitement flooding him. He will go for his weapon but she will not fight him here. The night forest is her domain. She will take to the trees, stalk him unseen and strike the moment his attention wavers. She is more patient than he could imagine.
> 
> "You yet live, hunter, because I erred in my judgment, and that is the truth."

|| NOW ||

 

"Wake," Tauriel murmurs to the man, drawing her fingertip down his cheek. His stubble has a much different texture now that he's flesh, but she's stopped from examining it further when his eyes flutter open.

"You," he says again, and tries to frown, but she scents his rising fear. "Where have you taken me? What is this place?"

"A haven." She discovered the small cave quite by accident more than a century ago. She thinks it used to serve someone not as a dwelling but as a way point, as she now uses it. It seems natural-made, although the entrance is difficult to find even standing right in front of it. Now that she's tasted the blood of Lorien, she can detect an obscuring enchantment, old and strong and too complex for her to begin to understand.

It's the only place that has ever been truly _hers._ She's let in nothing from the palace, stocked it carefully with things found in the forest and a few possessions acquired from the town of men. Before this night she's never shared its existence with anyone; and it doesn't matter that the stone man only sees the little she permits, she will still resent him if he does not... appreciate her sanctuary.

The man props himself up on an elbow, squinting in the thin light of the tiny smokeless fire Tauriel has laid. She lets him see clearly as she does, makes the fire seem brighter, but it causes him to whimper and screw his eyes shut. It’s only after he reclines again, brow furrowed as if in concentration, that his fear begins to wane. “This is a good place,” he decides.

“How do you feel?”

"I'm dying."

“There is a chance you may yet live." She is not certain she can save him without turning him, and it would be wisest not to try -- to slow the poison's progress just long enough to prevent the stone man from taking his secrets with him to the grave.

He opens his eyes once more, staring blankly ahead. Sweat stands out at his temples. "I feel like my blood's aflame."

"That's the venom." Likely, but perhaps not.

"The venom," he agrees.

Spider stings are no small matter even to her kind. Tauriel has seen the aftermath, oozing and putrid punctures that are slow to regenerate. It must be far worse for a mortal; and she can sense the man's life continuing to ebb. She takes up the water skin again, but she means to use it on his wound. It's her thumb she slices open and presses to his lips. "Drink."

His teeth catch on her flesh, not a bite, just a scrape. They're soon stained red, and when she draws away he swipes his tongue over them curiously.

"A healing draught," Tauriel says. "It's herbs you taste."

"Of course. You're a healer."

"Something like that. Sit up and be still. Your side must be cleaned, but I'll be gentle. You'll feel no pain."

He sits cross-legged, hands lax in his lap, while Tauriel ponders how to get at the wound. She's already relieved him of his heavy sword belt, but he wears a narrower one beneath his coat and atop other frustrating layers of clothing. In the end she strips him piece by piece -- the final layers are sticky with tainted blood -- until he's bared to the waist.

She did not expect the scars. His body is illustrated like a book: something with claws like a bear raked him across the back; whatever bit his shoulder had dozens of thin pointed teeth; she can place the pads of her fingers and thumb perfectly in the five small burns over his heart. The lesser marks are too numerous to count.

“You act as though you've never seen a scarred man before.” His voice is stronger, and he’s stopped shivering despite the lack of cover.

“Never one who can become stone,” Tauriel says, bending to rinse the wound. It's as ghastly as she feared, though her blood must be doing the man some good. Even as she watches, livid streaks that have spread into the surrounding tissue begin to retreat.

The man ignores her work. It isn't just the lack of pain. Whether by kin or by strangers, he's likely accustomed to being tended in such a manner. “You aren't supposed to know of that. No one is.”

“I know some. Tell me more.”

“Thorin would be furious.”

_“Tell me.”_

He turns to her, startled by something more than the compulsion, and slowly reaches for a piece of her hair. Fascinated, he lets the strands slide through his rough fingers like water; and she allows it because the distraction breaks his resistance. "It's the burden of my family."

"Who else carries the burden?"

"Among those left alive? Fili -- my brother. Our mother and her brothers. Several cousins that we know of."

"Your father?"

"Dead. He was ordinary, though mam told him of the burden before they were wed, so he carried the secret at least."

"Why burden?" Tauriel traces the teeth marks on his shoulder. The muscle beneath is bunched and thick. Her kin are sleeker made, having no need for raw power. “I would think it a boon to one who faces such perils.”

He looks over at her hand, follows her arm up until he's studying her face. "The way you touch me..."

"Does it bother you?" She could make him ignore the attention -- make him _enjoy_ it -- but easier to stop than to bend his will needlessly. Her curiosity is of no real consequence.

“No.” He might say more, but turns the sentiment into a lopsided shrug.

“Burden?” she prompts.

"We are forbidden to embrace stone except as a last resort. Outsiders mustn't learn our nature. It's a weakness a foe might turn against us."

Tauriel leans forward. "How?" This is what she must discover.

"I don’t know for certain, only that it can be done. We lost much of the knowledge we once had, so we cleave to what remains of the old ways without always understanding why."

"In that regard, your kind and mine are much alike.” If the march of time halts at the forest’s edge, change stumbles at the throne room. Her king does not like to entertain that the old ways may no longer be the best.

"Your kind?" When she does not answer, he gingerly shifts to lay on his side, half curled around her with his head at her knee.

"I would bind your wound."

"Leave it. I know I'm dying. The venom in my blood burns hotter than ever, and stone will not save me."

"Nothing is certain until it comes to pass," Tauriel says slowly. Against reason, she still wants him to live.

His lips barely move when he murmurs, “Save your words. I’ve always known I would die by violence. Give me your soothing touch instead.”

Soothing? He would not say that if he knew what she was. He would call her monster and likely seek to drive a pike into her heart. Still, she reaches out, hesitates, and finally nestles her fingers in his hair. It’s tangled but softer than she imagined, the loose strands clasped here and there with tiny beads.

Pulling in a breath, he measures it out again with a shudder. “Will you do me one last kindness?”

The shell of his ear is hidden, but she finds and follows its curve, down past his jaw to the point where his life flutters so near to the surface. How strange it is to touch him when it’s not only for her curiosity. Those she feeds from would spurn any comfort she might give, if she even knew how to give it honestly. It's the nature of her kind to deceive.

He takes her silence for assent. “Stay with me to the end. I don't fear what comes, only that I might face it alone.”

“I’ll stay." The pulse beneath her fingers calms but grows no less fiery. Does he know he should be in agony? Does he marvel that he isn't?

“Thank you, truly."

Perhaps she will ease him into death, but not yet. Not until she's learned all she can. “Tell me more of your family," she says, the words just words, without a trace of power.

He thinks a moment, then closes his eyes. “I'd like that. If they can't be with me then I would hold their memories to the last.”

 

 

|| THEN ||

 

It's hard to miss the news. The inn is abuzz with it.

Kili spoons down his breakfast porridge -- it somehow tastes of fish -- and listens, sorting meaningful details from misconceptions and embellishments.

"What do you think it was?" Fili says quietly. He's hunched before his own bowl, by his posture all too aware of the scrutiny they drew the minute they came down from their room. Everyone wants to know the opinion of the hunters, and there's been mention of a bounty made at least half a dozen times within their hearing in an attempt to draw them out.

"No saying for sure until we see the tracks and the carnage." Something large and brazen enough to attack a farmer's sheep pen during the night, slaughtering half the flock and driving the rest mad with fear. "We are going to investigate, aren't we?"

Fili taps his spoon against the rim of his bowl. "Might as well. Our purses grow lighter every day we wait on uncle, and it's not as if we have other leads to chase."

"You're not still upset about that."

"I'm not upset, merely... puzzled."

Kili grumbles, "I told you, it slipped my mind."

"You followed the woman for one purpose, and when you caught her the question slipped your mind? Doesn't that seem odd to you?"

"Perhaps." After all, Kili did ask about the mountain. He just failed to learn what exactly it is that tempts men's greed and lures them to the depths. "You think..." He signs the rest: _she attack farm._

"Admit it's possible."

"I won't deny it." There was certainly something strange about the woman, especially her haste to return to the forest on a night that the moon calls the foulest things out of their dank holes.

"Then it's settled," Fili says. "We do this smart. If we can't run down whatever it is before nightfall -- if it leads us too deep in the forest or proves unusually canny -- we return to town and wait on uncle. Make a proper family hunt of it."

"Agreed. Now, would you like the honor, or shall I?"

"Be my guest."

Kili turns the wrong way on his bench, stretching his legs out straight and leaning elbows back on the table. When he cleares his throat loudly, the whole common room hushes. "Am I mistaken, or did I hear something about a bounty?"

 

 

|| NOW ||

 

There's no other word for it: his stories entrance her. When the man speaks of his mother's fierce devotion, Tauriel can almost recall her own mother's face. His affection is so clear when he admits the mischief he and his brother got into as children that she longs for the siblings she never had. She envisions stalking a lush, green forest with him as he learned to hunt and track and fight. Mortal lives may be fleeting, but his seems full enough to her.

It's only when the tales leave behind his youth that she begins to realize her ignorance. He has seen deserts and frozen tundras, scaled mountains and sailed the great salt sea. The hospitality of a hundred different hearths has been his. For every scar that marks him there are two more battles he escaped unscathed.

She keeps him talking through the night, his head cushioned on her knee, and if his strength flags often his passion never does. Scenes of horror and astonishing beauty linger equally in his mind. He sings her snatches of unfamiliar songs, describes so vividly things she'll never touch or taste or feel that she almost can. At times he lapses into his foreign tongue, rambling for no audience but his own fevered mind; she listens rapt in those moments too, letting the sound roll over her.

Perhaps it isn’t right to hold him on the precipice, feeding him more and more blood when his heartbeat stutters and the light dims from his eyes, but she isn't ready to give him up. Nor is she eager to share what she's learned with her king, despite that withholding news of a potential threat would be counted a crime. The stone man is her secret, _hers._

She knows her kind are prone to jealousy, but it is still strange to recognize the impulse in herself.

With morning comes the sun and a terrible weariness, made worse by the long hours she’s gone without feeding or rest. The man is likewise exhausted, dropping to an uneasy sleep the instant she allows it. Banking the fire, she drapes her cloak over him and settles at his back, only to be roused again when he's taken by a violent coughing fit, his breaths thin and wet and in his lungs. She is too groggy to do more than bite her wrist and let him drink his fill, but it is enough to make him sleep soundly the rest of the day.

The next time she wakes it is dusk; and she is nuzzling the man's nape with her fangs out and thirst needling her. That is how she learns the repulsive venom has burned off at last. She knows the man is awake also, holding still as a statue but betrayed by the frantic drumming of his heart.

Tauriel pushes away, turning as she stands, not even wanting the temptation of looking upon him. Bad enough that his scent lingers on her, earthy and tinged with alarm. "Whatever you think, you're mistaken." Her voice is rough with want, and it takes effort to pull in her fangs. "Just now... nothing happened."

He sits up, still wrapped in her cloak if the faint rustling is any indication. "I don't-"

 _"Nothing happened."_ Now she must meet his eye briefly, to lay the compulsion. "Remain here and touch nothing. I will return." With that she grabs up her bow and flees the cave.

The man has gone almost two days without proper food. He must be hungry; and she is glad to apply herself to a problem that is easily remedied, for the rest will not be.

It is no longer a question of whether her stone man _can_ live, but whether or not he should. She cannot not take him to the palace. Even if she was willing to share him with the others, his secret would inevitably be found out and the king would want him dead. Indeed, Thranduil would be suspicious ere then, as she has captured many men over the years and never before desired to keep one for her own.

Legolas once dared become overfond of a mortal servant, and would have made her anew with his mark had Thranduil not interfered. Thranduil would not risk his son's enmity by slaying his pet, but he does not care whether Tauriel loves or hates him so long as he has her obedience.

Endangering the Mirkwood would be counted a failure of duty far worse than disobedience. She cannot let the stone man go free if he might return with his family to hunt and harry her kin. To try and turn him would mean arming a potentially uncontrollable foe with her closest secrets.

She would be quickly forgiven if she were to drain the man dry and return to the palace empty-handed. A rare show of selfishness might even appease her king, but it is the man’s stories she wants more than his heart’s-blood.

Could she keep him in her sanctuary? There is fresh water, and she could provide what else he needs. She would visit him often, chain him no more than necessary and make him forget that he hated her for it. He would look quite handsome washed and attired in fine clothes, she thinks; and just like that the decision is made.

There is still some untainted game at the forest's edge, and she brings down a plump hare easily enough. If that was her only task it would not take her long to return to the cave, but she must travel some distance to acquire a length of pitted chain. The glade has changed little in the centuries since she was abandoned there, an orphan too young and sickly to be shackled. It is the place she last knew real terror, and she imagines the echo of it still lingers beneath twisted and ancient trees.

The man will recognize the chain and guess its purpose. There's no need to alarm him just yet, so she drops it as quietly as she might at the cave's mouth before ducking inside. She is relieved to spot him within, and bemused in turn by her relief, for she never worried he might stray.

Perhaps she should have. "I told you to touch nothing."

He turns from inspecting her scant possessions, very deliberately trailing his fingers on an old pewter cup. "You're back." His heartbeat doesn't rise until his gaze locks with hers; and she realizes her approach failed to startle him despite that she moved with no more sound than usual. It's as though he was waiting to be caught.

She is the first to look away. “How do you feel?”

He rolls his bare shoulders experimentally. “Weak as a kitten, but otherwise much improved. Your… remedy worked a miracle.”

"This might help." She offers the hare, making him step to her to claim it.

Noting her bow, he inspects the carcass. "A clean shot. I would have thought snares more your style."

That's right, she is supposed to be old, stooped and poor of vision. She erases the bow, fixing her image before giving it to him fresh. "I did snare it."

"As you say." Crouching, he takes a knife from his boot to skin and prepare the hare.

She might have done it herself if she'd known how. Trying to follow his work, she's distracted at once by his appearance. He must have uncovered the tiny spring at the back of the cave, for his hair is damp and skin pink from scrubbing away the worst of the blood and grime. He’s clad in nothing above the waist save a bandage cut from his ruined shirt. "You weren't idle in my absence."

"Should I have been?"

"Not long ago you were certain you would die."

"Now I am certain I will live, and I have you to thank for it, my lady." He looks up to her as he says it, daring her to contradict.

"I'm nobody's lady, boy."

"Kili. My name is Kili. I would know yours."

"You may not have it." 

Wiping his knife, he cleans his hands on the hare's pelt before standing to face her. "A life-debt is owed. I must know to whom."

_"You do not need or want my name."_

The man -- Kili -- closes a step and reaches for her. "I'm afraid that won't work."

"Don't touch me!"

The command comes too late. Faster than expected, he darts and catches her wrist. It is the one she bit and let him guide to his mouth; the press of his fingers invokes the remembered sensation of his tongue lapping the same tender skin. “I see what you try to hide. I see _you,_ flame-haired lady of the forest.”

_"Unhand me."_

He does, but only after she’s tried and failed to master his will. Expression knowing, he releases her because he chooses to.

Her plan crumbles. There is no keeping him if she cannot glamor him, and he knows far too much to be given his freedom. He should die. The thought of burying her fangs in his throat arouses her thirst like nothing has in a long time, and yet she hesitates. Something is wrong, some treachery in play. Why did he stay when he had every opportunity to escape? Why would he admit his weakness unless it is a lie to put her off guard?

"You know, I didn't have to tell you," he says, bravado impressive as he returns to the hare. He skewers pieces of meat on his knife to roast over the fire -- which he built up in her absence. Of course, he wanted better light. She has the advantage in the dark. "I may not be the best actor, but I still could have let you believe your hold over me was unbroken."

"How did you break it?" Her gaze moves to his sword, lying in its sheath exactly where she dropped it. No, he wouldn't choose steel. There will be another weapon stashed close to hand, but he wants to appear unarmed and vulnerable. It must be why he hasn't dressed and strapped on his sword belt.

"Have you not guessed?" He says it almost kindly, with no hint of mockery -- not the best actor, ha! "You did it yourself. I thought I was suffering fever visions at first. I'd glimpse a flash of red hair or a clear bright eye or a fine-fingered hand, but then I would look again, look harder, and see an old witch. The spells worsened the more you bade me drink, until at last I recognized the taste and grasped that my mind grew more clear with every dose, not less."

"My blood," she whispers, then demands, "When did you know?"

"It was during the night." Testing his meal, he judges it done and sets the knife aside to cool.

She wishes he would hurry and eat; the smell of cooked meat does not repulse her like the venom did, but she still finds it disagreeable.

He sits back on his heels. "I thought: _She has tricked me into giving up my secrets. Now that I am no more use to her she will let me die._ Instead you let me rest my head in your lap, and nursed me, and listened keenly even to the most mundane of my stories. I began to think I might live, even if I could not understand why. Truth be told, I still don't."

Any second now he will turn on her. She will know by the excitement flooding his veins. He will go for his weapon but she will not fight him here. The night forest is her domain. She will take to the trees, stalk him unseen and strike the moment his attention wavers. She is more patient than he could imagine.

"You yet live, hunter, because I erred in my judgment, and that is the truth."

"You won't kill me," he says.

She cannot help her laughter, nor how bitter it sounds. "What, _you_ hope to kill _me_ before I can?"

His eyes widen, nearly guilty. "No, I meant- I woke wrapped in your cloak, feeling the prickle of your teeth on my neck, and I wondered if you had taken great pains to restore my health as a farmer would fatten a holiday goose. I waited and waited for the kiss that would open my vein, but it never came. Instead you went hunting for my breakfast, and I was sorry to have thought the worst of you."

Tauriel loosens the hold on her thirst, exposing her fangs. "Fool! Don’t you know what I am? You would not dare to taunt me if you knew long it's been since I've fed; how your scent drives me to distraction; how badly I desired you then and still do."

The man's heartbeat quickens, but he must truly be a fool not to cower at her outburst and display. He holds up both hands, gesturing peace. “It was not my intent to taunt you. I only try to understand since you won't explain yourself.”

"I owe you no explanation."

"I say you do."

"My reasons are my own," she snaps, on the verge of pacing. Why won't he end this farce and attack her already? Does he wait to regain his strength? "Eat your meal. I didn't bring you food for it to go to waste."

"You won't kill me," he says again, as if he is the one explaining to her. Still, he does as he's told, nibbling from his knife. After the first bite, hunger takes over and he bolts the rest under her scrutiny.

"I've seen animals with nicer manners."

He cleans the knife in the fire. "My apologies. It was rude of me not to offer you any, but I somehow thought you would not want it. If I was mistaken..."

“There is only one thing slakes my thirst.” She sneers at him, curling her lip to bare her fangs. “I crave your life. Don't think I won’t take it.”

The man still will not be provoked. He stands before her, nervous for another reason, rubbing his shoulder and refusing to look anywhere but at the fire. “You can't take what I would offer of my own accord,” he says slowly, cautiously. “I owe a debt… and I think I am recovered enough that it would not harm me to... to give back some of what you gave me." He flushes as he hurries on, "You can do it, can't you? Feed without killing."

Tauriel charges him, gripping him by the throat and lifting him off his feet. "So that is your plan! I don't desire you enough to have forgotten what you are, stone man. Did you intend to poison me with the dust in your veins or just trap me with my teeth in your flesh?"

His face shows his shock, but he clutches the arm holding him only to relieve the pressure on his neck. He doesn't kick or gouge her, doesn't injure her although he could. Oh, he could. His reach is easily as long as hers, and in her carelessness she has brought him into range to strike at her heart. Even if he has no weapon concealed on him, he might pin her arm and go to stone before she could throttle him, trapping her that way. A statue does not need sustenance; she would likely weaken long before he would.

"You're wrong," he croaks. "Let me prove it. Please."

She drops him, backing well away. It puts her within reach of his sword, and she retrieves it from the ground, gaze never leaving him.

"Fine." He waves at her, coughing a little as he staggers upright. "Hold that if it makes you feel better."

It does, but she'd never admit it. "I've spent more years training with a blade then you've been alive."

"I don't doubt it."

"I don't trust you."

He rubs at his throat. "Believe me, I've noticed. Your kind and mine are destined to be enemies -- that is what I would have thought before I started to know you."

She raises the sword at him in warning when he approaches again, but it seems to be just what he wants. He gingerly takes the scabbard’s end and pulls, exposing the blade inch by inch until it's naked in her hand.

"Perhaps it is impossible for us to be friends. I may never understand the kindness you showed me, but I promise I will never forget it." Dropping the scabbard, he grasps the blade again and gives a sharp twist before she can stop him.

Blood wells between his fingers, running down the fuller toward her even after he releases the sword. It's all she can do not catch it on her tongue. Riveted by the scent of him, the sight of fresh drops splattering wasted in the dust, she moans, "What have you done?"

"Here." He offers her the life pooling in his cupped hand. "This doesn't clear my debt, but it's something. A start."

"No..."

"You may drink without fear of trickery," he coaxes. "I couldn't trap or poison you like this. I swear I don't wish you harm."

“I might not control myself.” It's true, and an excuse he'll believe. More, she doesn't want him to see her reduced by need, base and monstrous. His opinion of her shouldn't matter, but she finds that it does. "You would do well not to follow me." Throwing down the sword, she flies from the cave.

She doesn't go far, perching in the trees where she can watch the entrance. Sure enough, after a few minutes he climbs out, scanning the gloom for her. She imagines that his gaze lingers on her hiding spot, then he bends to leave something on the ground before ducking back inside.

The man -- Kili -- is stubborn as stone, she'll give him that, and she's running out of resolve to fight him. She descends from her branch and steals to the cup he left, her old pewter one, warmed by the blood it holds. Her intent to savor the bounty lasts until she gets her first real taste of him, then she's gulping down his life, rich and thick and glorious. Her haste leaves a dribble at the edge of her mouth; she smears it on her hand then licks it clean, thinking it's not enough, not nearly, but it's something.

A start, he called it.

What is she to do with him?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Is your pride injured that I won't drink from you?" Tauriel lowers her voice, applying it like a caress. "Shall I soothe it by admitting the effort it takes to keep my fangs sheathed with your blood roused and hot and maddeningly close? Who is deluded, hunter? Which of us is struggling not to show on their face what their racing pulse has already betrayed?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is now much longer than I intended, and I had to up the rating with this chapter. Oops?

|| THEN ||

 

Once the terms of the bounty are settled, it takes them but minutes to gather their gear and depart the lake town. The day is cool and blustery, the wind the kind that rattles tree limbs and moans like a live thing and can send an icy chill up your spine. Kili waits until they're out of sight of the town guards to rub at his arms, shoulders hunched up to his ears.

"I don't like it either," Fili says, "but it could be worse."

"And I'm sure it will be, now that you've cursed us for rain."

"Better that than a hot sun and no breeze at all." Fili points skyward, not to the high clouds, but to the dark specs flocking over what is presumably their destination. It's no wonder their family is associated with ravens. Hunters and carrion birds go hand-in-hand.

Approaching the farm downwind, they're greeted by the scent of death. The surrounding land is poor, rocky and too near the forest's influence, useful for grazing hardy animals but not much else. Fanning out, they begin to search for signs of the monster's passage, though they both know it's likely to have come from the opposite direction, from the trees.

When the farmer spots them and hastens over, Kili leaves his brother to make introductions and pushes on to inspect the sheep pen. What he finds is grim but also reassuring. The old woman from the inn was hiding something, to be sure. It's _possible_ she might possess the strength to maul a dozen panicked sheep; but he's certain of her mind, keen enough to evade his question, whereas the carnage is thoughtless and wanton. Offal and wool and gobs of meat are strewn about the blood-soaked pen. It seems that no two animals died the same way, and while he can find a few with their throats torn out, he cannot see where any were hamstrung.

Fili reaches the same conclusion at a glance. "Doesn't strike me as the work of an intelligent predator," he says, joining Kili at the fence. The farmer is nowhere in sight, probably sent to gather fuel for a pyre.

"No."

"What do you think, then?"

Kili shrugs. "It was fast, whatever it was, and killed for pleasure as much as hunger. Did it try to get at the farmer at all?"

"No, ignored the cottage, though from the look of these poor beasts it could have broken in the door easily enough." Fili circles the fence slowly, and it isn't long before he crouches to examine something in the dirt. "I can't think what might have made these tracks, but not something that walks on two legs, or four."

"It'll be easy to track, at least." Closing his eyes, Kili expands his stone sense down, to the place where his boots meet the ground, and from there out like a ripple in a pond.

Still crouching, Fili does the same, removing a glove to press his hand to the earth. "Anything?"

"No."

"If it has an underground nest or a lair, it probably won't be close by."

Kili grins. "We're both thinking it."

"He _would_ be useful right about now."

Although its reach is greater, Kili's stone sense is not as sharp as Fili's; and Thorin's is stronger than both combined. Their uncle could probably walk a straight line a mile long while blindfolded, but holding a steady course does him no good if he isn't aimed in the right direction. "Think he'll try to blame his map again?"

"That would mean admitting he was lost." Standing, Fili makes a brief check over his weapons. "Still, he can't be far behind. Sure you want to hunt whatever this is, just the two of us?"

It would be dangerous, no doubt, but when was their work not? "So long as we do it smart, as you said."

 

 

|| NOW ||

 

Tauriel is reluctant to face him, after. It's a long while before she's ready to creep back to the cave, and once again her approach fails to surprise him. He wasn't watching for her, yet he looks over his shoulder from his place at the fire, not speaking whatever question is clearly on his mind.

"Thank you," she murmurs.

He smiles, actually smiles for her, a soft shy thing that makes him look terribly young. "You're welcome, my lady. Was it- I didn't know how much-"

"It was enough." The blood did blunt her thirst, even if she craves him more than ever. “And you…?”

He ducks his head, hiding behind his shaggy hair. “I’ll be fine. I've had the rest of the hare. That will help bolster me.”

She circles the fire to sit opposite him, clasping arms about her drawn-up knees. The unspoken question is still present in the way his hands fidget on something in his lap. To forestall it she says, "What do you have there?"

"This?" He holds up a scrap of cloth, the same faded blue as the bandage around his middle and the new one wrapped around his hand. "It was a perfectly good shirt until two days ago. The heavier one I can mend, but I don't have my sewing kit. I thought to salvage some thread and find a feather or a thorn or something to make a crude needle. Unless... you have one I might use?"

"I don't, not here."

"This isn't your home.”

“I sometimes stay here when I want-" To be reminded. "When I want solitude." Whatever happens, she feels he's put his mark on her haven. Within these timeless stone walls, his memory will keep her company long after he's left the world.

It's disturbing how much he understands. "I have no home save the open road." His expression turns wry. "Well, I'll always be welcome in my mother's house, but it's not the same. I often wonder what it would be like to have a place I could make my own.”

"Did you choose a vagabond existence or did your kin choose it for you?"

He considers. "I was young and rash when I choose it-"

"You are still very young." Also quite rash.

"Perhaps." His face colors slightly beneath his stubble. “I would do the same even now, knowing the cost."

"Cost?" She says it before she remembers that he expects to die by violence. It must follow, too, that he expects not to see old age.

"Aye, little things I've learned to do without." He shows her the piece of thread he's pulled from the weave of his old shirt. "And ordinary things I'll never have." The hesitation before he continues spoils his nonchalance. "I'm not wed, for instance, and I reckon I never will."

The possibility hadn't crossed her mind. "I assumed as much."

"Oh? I'm surprised you would spare a thought for- That is, I imagine there is much about me beneath your notice, my lady."

Less than he thinks. "Your stories did not mention mate or children."

"For their safety, I would not speak of them. If they existed."

"You wouldn't," she agrees. "Yet I have known many men to plead for their lives in the name of family. _I have a sickly wife and twelve children who will starve,_ they beg." She bristles just to remember their sniveling. "It is never true. Those are the men I despise. I feel no remorse for their fate."

It's impossible to know if his frown is born of contempt for such behavior or discomfort for the reminder of Tauriel's crimes. "And old Tomas? What did he say to thaw your cold heart?"

"What makes you think that foolish story is anything to do with me?"

"His savior was tall and unearthly with hair like a river of fire." A wistful note enters his voice. "The most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. It was you."

"To think I'd see the day I'm called cold-hearted by a stone man."

Leaning toward her, he presses, "Did you spare me for the same reason you saved him?"

"Did he offer me a meal I could not eat and a bed I could not sleep in? No." She can tolerate sitting at the inn hearth because its foundation runs deep, but every minute she spends with nothing but wood between her and the lake is a misery.

"You knew Tomas from the lake town. Is that why you visit, to pick your targets? Out of everyone present that day, I chose you to question. Was that your doing? Was it really you who chose me?"

"The spider chose you with its stinger."

"It was you burned the bodies."

"More will come. There are always more." The necromancer holds a special hatred for her kind, beings who persist beyond death with their will intact.

His eyes narrow. "You said stinger, not fang."

"I didn't-" She can no longer compel him to believe her. He must be convinced. "An assumption given the appearance of your wound."

"No. You saw the fight." Abandoning his sewing, he rises on his knees. "How long did you track me?"

She uncurls, ready to move if he comes closer. "That's _enough,_ hunter."

"My name is Kili."

"What would you have me say? That I meant to take your brother instead?” She can see by the hardening of his expression that her words have found purchase. "Oh yes. He has such a pretty head of golden hair. It would have pleased-" Although this Kili must guess she doesn't dwell alone in the Mirkwood, she will not admit the existence of king and court.

"Of course you would prefer him," he mutters. The hand that wanted to reach for her falls limp at his side.

"Don't put words in my mouth. Leave me out of whatever envy lies between you."

"I love him too much for that."

"Then-"

He says dully, "I had to know if I was anything to you besides an error in judgment, a curious mistake."

"What else could you be?" She gives him the coldness he accused her of, the immortal disdain for one who will wither and die. Too late she realizes the risk that he might find some compelling answer, one she has refused to see.

Instead he finds another smile for her, this one brittle and transient. "I am but a man. You cannot simply- You cannot do what you have done to me and expect me to be... _unaffected_ by it as you are.”

Good. Let him think she is untouched by what she has done, that she does not even now dread the consequences. "Would you rather I had let the poison take you?"

"That's not what I mean and you know it." His expression shifts from frustration to wonder as he searches her face. "You don't know."

"Know what?"

He shakes his head.

_"Tell me."_

"Ah, none of that, lady. This secret is mine to keep.”

“Have your mortal concerns, then. I care not.” Oh, but she does. He wears the knowledge he won't share with an air of satisfaction that might be vindictive were he a lesser man.

Rising, he moves again to the ledge where she has arranged her possessions, lingering in turn over a wooden comb, a smooth green rock, a bear's skull, a glass bauble, as if to memorize them or to put his touch where hers has been and will be again. When he reaches a glossy black feather he says, "May I have this if I leave something in exchange?"

"For your needle? Take it. It's an ornament, no use to me."

He combs through his hair, showing her one of the little beads he's slid free.

"There's no need-"

"It's just an ornament, no use to me." He swaps it for the feather, then retrieves his sewing to sit again, much closer to her than before. Pulling the knife from his boot, he tries to strip vanes from shaft, but his bandaged hand is clumsy.

"Fool. That will teach you not to slice open your palm." She doesn't tell him that she can scent fresh blood and knows the wound has reopened.

"It will heal. In the meantime, I'll manage."

It annoys her to see him struggle, not least because his uninjured hand is deft and sure. He should have made quick work of his task. "This is painful to watch."

He arches an eyebrow at her. “Would you prefer to do it?”

“I would, yes. Give it here."

By his surprise, he hadn't made the suggestion in sincerity, but hands over knife and feather anyway.

"Shirt too."

"You can sew?"

"Well enough to mend a tear, though I can't promise it will be pretty." She shaves down the feather in no time to a workable needle.

"Pretty or no, lady, I'll proudly wear a shirt mended by your hand."

Threading the needle is no easy feat, and it's much too wide for the fabric's weave. At least the tear is not large. "That's an odd thing to say."

He watches her progress indirectly, taking up a stick to poke the fire. "Yes, it is. I never imagined- These last days have been the strangest of my life, but until this moment I think my brother, at least, would have believed me if I'd told him the truth of the tale."

Tauriel's hands still. "What makes you think you'll tell him anything?"

"I'm healed enough," he begins slowly. "I mean to leave in the morning when I'll have the sun's company to guide me."

So soon it's come to this. She fights a flash of jealousy, little consoled that he doesn't appear eager at the thought of escaping her. "What makes you think-"

"You _will_ let me go." Overbright eyes bore into hers as if he is laying his own compulsion. "In the morning. And you will do one more thing for me ere we part."

"You are in no position to be making demands, hunter." She intends to make it a growl, but though the words are low they lack bite.

"Two things," he decides. "Just once I would hear my name from your lips."

His manner alone is cause for refusal, but she is still curious. "And?"

He shuts his eyes for a moment, preferring not see her as he says, "I want you to make me forget. You, this place, all that transpired here between us."

Forget her? She almost shreds his sewing to throw the scraps at him, halted only by a greater desire to seem _unaffected,_ damn him. Instead she taunts, "Afraid I'll haunt your dreams, _Kili?"_ His name is a whipcrack that makes him flinch. "Will you be unable to sleep soundly knowing creatures such as myself dwell in the night?"

"You mistake me apurpose, lady."

"And you vowed to always remember my kindness."

"I would if I could!" His tightening grip snaps the stick, and he feeds the pieces to the fire. "You'd be welcome in my dreams, for I feel it's the only place we're likely to meet again. But I won't- The problem is my uncle. Last I knew he was headed to the lake town with a company of hunters."

Now here is news her king will need -- if it is not some new trick. "Why do you tell me this?"

His hand catches one of hers. "Because I am certain my brother searches for me even now, and my uncle will join him. I would not lead them to you."

She frowns. "This place is far from where you met the spiders, and I left no trail to follow."

"Even so. You are canny and strong, lady, but I think you know my kind are also not to be trifled with." When she does not pull away, he loosens his hold until his thumb is moving lightly over the mound of her palm. "I have thought and thought and this path seems safest for us both. It will ease your conscience to let me go if I have no secrets of yours to spill, and my uncle can't command me to say what I do not know. He is my leader and the head of our family. I owe him obedience."

Much as she dislikes it, she sees the sense in his argument at once. Even before the spiders she thought to glamor him and return him unharmed. "You forget one thing already," she says, looking blankly at their joined hands. "My blood-"

"Permits me to resist your will. But what if I knowingly bent to you? Could you do it?"

If she cannot, his death is assured. He must not be given back to his uncle with his memories preserved. A company of hunters! The danger is far more imminent than she imagined. She slips her hand from his, worried that she allowed him the familiarity at all. "It is within my power... provided you don't resist."

"Thank you."

Tauriel makes a show of resuming her mending. "There are conditions, things I want from you as well."

His pulse roars, and he says hoarsely, "Name them."

"There are hours yet until morn. I would have more of your stories to pass the time."

He nods, perhaps not fully hearing the request. "And?" Excitement alone sends a tremor through him. He would let her feed from him if she asked; he _expects_ her to ask and has his answer poised to give.

She disappoints him in part to chastise herself. "I want your uncle's name, so that I will be warned if ever he asks about the lake town after me."

"Of- of course," Kili stammers. "He is Thorin, called Oakenshield. You will recognize him by the sword he carries, a formidable blade with a curved edge and a monstrous tooth as its hilt."

"Not a shield of oak?"

"There is one, but he does not always have it. The sword never leaves his side." When she says nothing more he ventures, "Is that all?"

Finishing her stitches, she bites off the thread. "What else could I want from you?"

"There is one thing we both know..."

So, he will not speak it either. She throws him the finished shirt. "Is there."

For a long moment he simply holds the garment, the mended tear beneath his pensive fingers. The cloth will always bear the faint stain of his blood, though he managed to wash out the worst of it. Finally he works the shirt over his head, hissing as the motion tugs his wound. He emerges with mussed hair and a guarded expression, looking at last like the stranger he is. "What else? Would you hear me say your name? Shall I show you how to fix my ornament in your hair?"

"Give me your coat so I can mend it too."

He stands and turns his back on her, not yet after the coat. "If you want nothing more to do with me, why ask for my stories?"

"They make for an amusing diversion."

"A diversion," he mutters. "Aye, that I can do." Fetching the coat, he breaks into song without warning. His voice permeates the cave, inviting and slightly worn, a good match for the rollicking tune.

Pity she's in no mood to appreciate it.

He interrupts the second verse to say, "Join in if you know the words -- or even if you don't!"

She does, unfortunately. It's a favorite at the lake town inn, though Kili's rendition is an improvement over that drunken caterwauling.

He bows extravagantly. "Maybe you'd care to dance instead. No?" Shrugging, he rearranges his coat -- grips the sleeves as if holding a partner -- and then off he spins.

"Stop-"

"You may cut in at any time." Cavorting about the cave to some imaginary reel, he has to crane his neck to watch her, dark hair whipping in his face. "What's wrong, lady? Are you not amused? Is my diversion lacking?"

One turn he comes too close, allowing her to snag the coat and halt him in his tracks. "Stop," she repeats, but they are already at an impasse. Neither will let go the garment or risk damaging it by tearing it from the other's grasp.

"A different song, then. I have just the thing, a marching tune to hasten the plodding hours. The first ninety verses can get a bit repetitive-"

_"Ninety?"_

"-but it's tradition to get them out of the way before we start adding our own." He tugs the coat. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll have the hang of it long before we reach that point. Ready?"

"I am not. Nor am I amused."

_"My mother and father they want to the market; not three coins between them in all of their pockets..."_

"Why are you doing this?"

"I am attempting to entertain you, as you asked." He pulls the coat again, and when she won't release it he drops it on her head.

She wads it up and hurls it across the cave, just missing the fire. "I asked for stories."

"Ah, I know just the one, never fails to make my brother laugh no matter how he tries to resist." Hands clasped behind his back, he paces slowly before her. "It's sung as well, though in a tongue you won't know, so I'll describe what happens before I begin."

Very well, she'll bear another song if it means the chance to hear more of his odd language.

"It's the tale of a young man, a traveler. One hot, dusty afternoon, he happens upon a cottage and knocks on the door to ask for a drink of water. He is met by a young woman whose generosity is only surpassed by her beauty, the most stunning creature he has ever seen."

"Describe him," she says, disliking the veiled similarities between song and present circumstances. If he has invented this tale as another means to vex her...

"I don't know... young. Cocksure. Middling height with a squint from the sun. He dislikes wearing a hat because it hides his handsome gold hair."

Unsure, she waves for him to continue.

"The young man of course is smitten. He returns the next day; and, under the pretense of asking for another drink of water, declares his love."

"A young woman of such good qualities could have any man she wants. Why should she care that this... impetuous traveller presumes to love her? He can't be the first, or the last."

"Ah!" Kili stalls her with a raised hand. "Fear not. This is her tale, too. A weaver by trade, the young woman lives on the far outskirts of town, alone but for her chickens and a mean old billy goat who is a better watchdog than any mastiff." He looks at her slyly. "You'll do the goat's part, won't you?"

"The what?"

"The part of the goat." He explains with exaggerated patience, "The song is sung in parts. I'll do the young man and young woman, in different voices even, but it works best if someone else does Father Goat. There are no words, all you need do is bleat angrily on cue."

She leaps to her feet and stalks to him. "Enough of your mockery! I've a mind to toss you out into the forest now, with no directions and no sun to guide you."

Facile manner vanishing, he stares her down from an alarmingly short distance as no mortal has ever done, and few even of her kin would dare. "Fine, do it! Without the sun I might trip over every root and fallen branch, but be sure I would not lose my way."

"The sun will be up in a couple hours. We need only weather each other's company that long, but if you would rather face the night forest than suffer another moment in my presence-"

"You're the one threatened to throw me out!" Eyes flashing, he trembles lightly, and not from fear. "Say the word and I'll go, but don't pretend your discontent is mine. It's been my honor to meet you, lady. I would not forget sooner than I must."

"I was content until you insisted on ruining the mood with your tavern songs and your _bleating goats."_ Putting her hands to his chest is like bracing against a boulder, except that he gives a step when she shoves him. "I wanted one simple thing from you and you gave me a travesty."

"Oh, I know exactly what you want from me. I wonder if you do, if you lie to me or delude yourself."

"Is your pride injured that I won't drink from you?" She lowers her voice, applying it like a caress. "Shall I soothe it by admitting the effort it takes to keep my fangs sheathed with your blood roused and hot and maddeningly close? Who is deluded, hunter? Which of us is struggling not to show on their face what their racing pulse has already betrayed?"

A muscle tics beneath Kili's jaw, but he is otherwise too composed. "Have my blood, and welcome to it. What you will not have is more stories, not the private ones you truly want -- my _life_ exposed for your perusal. You've already pried more from me than any outsider should know; that fevered night I confided things I've kept even from my closest kin. In return you give me nothing of yourself."

"Nothing?" she laughs, but where she meant to sound incredulous she hears strain. He is right about the stories. She does want the ones about him, the true ones that let her imagine what it would be like to live and feel with the same urgency he does. "The gift of my blood was the most private one I could make. I have never before permitted another in my haven. You see my true self as others may not, and you still think me aloof."

"If we're so equal then tell me your name."

"Why should it matter? You'll only forget it -- forget everything -- come morn." The regret she's been hiding finally seeps through her words.

"It matters to me." He drifts back to her, his features softened by something more than the firelight. "My life is so much shorter than yours. Will you make me waste the time I might have known you better, simply because I'll forget sooner than you?"

When he strokes her cheek with the knuckles of his injured hand, an idea she has been trying to deny takes shape. "Lie with me."

"What?"

"Will you lie with me?"

Kili wets his lips. "I... thought I must have misheard."

She doesn't touch him, not yet. It would distract them both when she needs to be sure of her reasons. "I think you find me pleasing." She knows he does. Even now want is clouding his eyes.

"And you?" he says thickly. "I understand now why you were fascinated by my scars, but is there anything about me that could please you, lady?"

"I would not ask if there wasn't." She drops her gaze from his while she can still resist its fervor. "I will confess that I have only lain with my kind, never with a man."

"Then you are... curious," he decides, tasting the word like it is odd but not unpalatable.

"In part." She traces the embroidery at the wide collar of his shirt, teasing without crossing the divide between cloth and skin; it isn't long before he captures her hand with his to still it.

"I haven't forgotten the question of your name."

"That is not why I asked."

"Convince me, then, that I should agree. As badly as I want you, there remains a small yet sensible part of my mind begging me to flee while I still have the chance."

He has shown her exactly what she must say. "You were right about me: I've never emptied a living heart, though my kin count doing so a sublime pleasure." One rarely afforded in these grim times.

Strangely enough, it is her trapped hand that halts him when he tenses and might retreat. He regards her warily, his desire banked for the moment.

"I am considered callow, foolishly sentimental. Some think me undeserving of a place among them. Perhaps I am, but better to cling to sentiment than embrace apathy. I fear to lose- to become as they are, so I keep this cave and stock it with trinkets to remind me that I can still be moved by the smallest of things."

"And sometimes, instead of stealing lost travelers to their doom, you save them."

"You asked how Tomas thawed my heart. He had taken in a child, an orphan, when no one else would. I couldn't-" If there had been someone like him all those years ago, perhaps she would not be what she is.

"To think I called you cold."

She smiles wanly. "In many ways I am. The true insult would have been calling me indifferent."

"I must be mad. But, by all accounts I should be a dead man thrice over." Releasing her hand, he catches her hip without further prompting, drawing her close until his mouth hovers over hers. "If this kills me it will only be my due," he says, and kisses her.

She doesn't open for him at first, too interested in the rub of his short beard. When he asks a second time with a polite flick of his tongue, she pulls back just enough to warn, "Have care, hunter. My fangs aren't as sharp as a spider's, but draw blood and I may respond as gently as one."

"Kili," he reminds absently. His other hand dives into her hair, but his next kiss is slow and searching, and he doesn't shy when he does gingerly encounter her fangs.

They're much of a height, which she finds she likes. Still, his shoulders are a good deal broader, his torso thicker and plated with muscle. She'll enjoy determining how near her match he is in strength.

He breaks off teasing her lower lip to ask, "What else should I be aware of?"

"I intend to have you as many times as you're able before the sun rises."

"Are you-" He swallows hard, the bob of his throat more tantalizing than he can know. "You're in earnest. How do you-"

"You can't believe I've sat at the inn hearth without learning a few things of the habits of men. My hearing is very sharp," she grins, reaching for his trouser laces.

"Wait, wait..."

"Lost your mettle already?" She's sure he hasn't, but wonders if perhaps he's less worldly than his kisses suggest. It's a surprise, then, when he traps her face between his palms, staring at her so long and intently that she begins to grow self-conscious. It's a feeling she rarely encounters and almost doesn't recognize unaccompanied by shame or simmering anger.

Kili's attention is not benign. He examines her cheekbones with his callused thumbs, turns her head until he has the firelight reflected in her eyes just the way he wants. Any other time she would chafe at the treatment, but there is still something guarded in his expression, doubt not of her intentions but of her _realness._

At last she says softly, "What is wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing is wrong... and nothing is what is wrong."

If they had the time, she would let him look his fill. It's heady to be the object and recipient of such intensity, but it only makes her more impatient to see his restraint broken. "Kili?" she asks, and sure enough, the indulgence of his name starts the first crack.

Her hunting leathers are a far more simple affair than what she is obliged to wear at court, but the fastenings are still not obvious. She demonstrates the first clasp for him under his rapt gaze; his hands join hers to fumble the second, and she leaves the rest to him, going back to his laces.

It's his sigh that hangs in the air when he worms inside her tunic and finds instead of more layers bare skin. He splays his hand high on her side, just grazing the swell of her breast, watching closely for her reaction.

"I think we're beyond niceties," Tauriel says, trying to shove down his trousers and rid herself of boots at the same time. "Touch me like you mean to claim me."

"Sorry, I- It's a bit overwhelming."

"And don't fear hurting me. You're more fragile than I am."

His pride has been needled -- which can only distract him from being too cautious. "For a man, I happen to be considered extremely hardy."

"Yes, and not long ago you took a wound that should have killed you," she reminds.

His touch shifts higher, still tentative.

If he keeps halting every few seconds to assure himself of her continuing permission she'll go mad. She would throw him to the ground where they are, but he _is_ injured, and it wouldn't do to soil his bandage. Instead she shuffles them toward her cloak, kicks it out flat and drags him down with her onto it.

It's no accident that he lands between her legs, but he keeps himself well above her, leaning on his locked arms. Tauriel takes brief advantage of the space between them to finish squirming out of her tunic and get her leggings halfway off. "Are you ready?"

"I-"

She gropes beneath the tail of his shirt and finds that his cock is at least. He shudders as she strokes him, and she locks her legs around his hips, guiding him to her entrance. He's barely breached her when he stills, anxiously searching her face; she is tight, but not uncomfortably so.

There will be time later for leisured exploration. Now, her concern is taking the edge off her hunger. She returns his stare with a heated one of her own, parting her lips to let him watch her tongue curl and play over one of her fangs, and begins to exert her strength.

An answering spark lights his eyes when he realizes what she's doing, but he can't fight his wavering resistance and her pull both. She clenches her legs, slamming his hips full against her and driving him deep.

Kili collapses on her, growling a foreign curse against her throat. He has a mouthful of red hair when he lifts his head, and if he didn't look so feral she might laugh. "That was cruel," he says, withdrawing as far as she'll let him and needing no more coaxing to bury himself in her again and again.

"It was effective." She kneads his shoulders, urging him on. "If I hadn't just mended this damnable shirt I'd have it off you in pieces."

"I can-"

"Later."

He presses his face to her neck again, his breaths hot and ragged. The rasp of his beard is not unpleasant, until he deliberately rubs his cheek against her and catches the gasp she tries to stifle. Then, armed with the knowledge of just how tender her skin is, he sets about drawing more soft sounds from her, arching his body so that he can reach her breasts to mouth and nuzzle.

The message is clear: he can be cruel, too.

"That's it..." Tauriel strokes the nape of his neck, gripping sometimes to hold his attention where she wants it. "Give yourself to me. Your mind may forget me, but I would have your body remember. In the darkest, loneliest hours of the night I'll invade your dreams and take what I desire." She whispers, "Isn't that your desire as well?"

He answers by spending himself with a wordless shout.

For long moments after there is no sound but the crackling fire and the thundering of Kili's pulse. His weight is pleasant atop her, warm and reassuring. She is loathe to move, but he may need to. "How is your side?"

"My what?" He slurs the words as if drunk.

"Your injury." It hasn't reopened -- she scents no fresh blood -- but it could still pain him if he's strained it.

"What injury?" He claims her mouth while they're still joined, his kisses drowsy and unduly tender as she thinks only a mortal's could be. Shifting, he means to free her from being caught beneath him.

"Your weight is nothing to me."

"Perhaps." His expression is dazed, save for a delighted smile. "But unlike me, I doubt you're disposed to find comfort resting on bare rock."

"True enough, stone man." Tauriel presses him up and rolls them over, wrestling his shirt off in the process.

"I still have my boots on."

"They weren't in my way." She stretches sensually before curling into his uninjured side, and finds she's content to rest with her head on him, listening to his heartbeat slacken.

"Er, are you-

"That was a fine start."

When she kisses across his chest Kili laughs shakily, "Allow me a few minutes." His arm sneaks around her, and once he realizes he's allowed, he can't keep his fascinated hands out of her hair for long.

"Tell me a story. I don't even care which one. I just want to hear your voice like this."

Thinking a moment, he decides, "I never finished the tale of Father Goat." He laughs again over her snort of annoyance, "You said you didn't care."

_"Fine."_

"Where was I?"

"A paltry love declaration."

"Right. The young traveler waxes poetic, praising the object of his love, and says that he intends to court her. The weaver woman tells him he'll have to return the next day to speak to her father, who is aged and disagreeable and highly protective of his only daughter, the jewel of his life. The young man agrees because he thinks himself utterly charming; and besides, who can argue against the blush of young love?"

Tauriel thinks she begins to see where the story is headed, and might want to hear the end even if Kili's voice wasn't an alluring rumble in her ear.

"The young woman lives alone, you'll remember."

"Apart from her chickens and the goat-"

"Who is mean and ornery but protective of his mistress -- that much was true. The next day, when the traveler is due to arrive, the young woman readies Father Goat, dressing him in a shirt and felt hat and suspenders; and gives him a stool to stand on so that when he looks out over the cottage's double door, he seems a reasonable mannish height. You see, she dislikes the traveler, knowing that he's poor of eyesight and full of empty flattery, for he described her freckled skin like purest honeyed cream, and her green eyes like limpid pools that shame the bluest cloudless sky."

"Did he."

"Oh yes." Kili's touch ghosts over her shoulder, where a smattering of freckles persists despite the centuries she's hid from the sun. "The young man arrives and gives his greetings to Father Goat, who only bleats crossly in response. The man redoubles his efforts, complimenting Father Goat's stately white beard and fine attire, but Father Goat simply snatches the flower from his coat's buttonhole to eat. The exchange continues for several verses, until the would-be suitor departs in a huff, and Father Goat and his mistress share a pot of their favorite vegetable stew to celebrate their victory."

"That is a much better story than I first thought," Tauriel allows.

"It would take too long to sing it now, and anyway it's most amusing when there are enough singers to each take a part." He offers slowly, "When we were young, before my voice changed, Fili would make me take the weaver's part. He regrets it now; with all that practice, I can mince and simper so well that he can't keep a straight face long enough to do the suitor's part."

So, the story is not a private one of itself, but he chose to make it private for her.

"Sometimes we'll pick an unsuspecting target," he adds, "sing up to Father Goat's entrance, and badger them until they give in and provide the bleats. Our uncle hates to be caught, but no one can match his surly performance."

Tauriel lifts her head. "You should know... I don't think your life tawdry. Not at all."

Kili swallows but says nothing.

She almost misses the hum, so faint that it's all but lost beneath the fire's hiss. Words soon strengthen it; she doesn't recognize his language at first with the sharp edges taken away. The song itself holds an odd power, perhaps because it is so subdued, the artless melody and unknown words laden with bare yearning.

As Kili finishes, his arm tightens around her. "My mother used to sing that as a lullaby."

 _I think my mother used to sing to me,_ Tauriel wants to say. _Just now, I could almost remember her voice._

"I didn't realize for many years that she gave it different words. The original is sung by the ghost of a man who died far from home, and haunts the crossroads where he was buried in an unmarked grave. He mourns that he could not return to his family, that they'll never know his fate."

 _His father is dead,_ she remembers. "Kili..."

He lifts a piece of her hair to his lips to kiss, and when his gaze seeks hers, the heat rekindled there steals her breath. "You still say so little of yourself, but there are other ways to know you, lady." With that he slides her from his arm, rises long enough to shed the last of his clothes and put more sticks on the fire. When he returns, he watches her for a long moment with hooded eyes before reclining beside her.

Though his touch is tentative at first, she thinks it's out of indecision, not caution. It quickly passes, and she lets him roam her body, basking in his admiration. There's no part of her he doesn't want to explore, from the delicate inside of her wrists to the jut of her hip to the curve of her calf. She follows his progress mainly through her other senses, noting where his pulse quickens. There is a promising reaction when he reaches the valley between her legs.

"Am I made as you expected?" she purrs, spreading for him.

His touch settles high on the inside of her thigh, and she realizes her mistake. "Who did this to you, lady?"

He's found the only scars she bears, twin silvery marks the width and shape of a strong pair of fangs. She longs to hide them, to make them disappear, make him forget he ever saw them. "It's not what you think it is."

"Now I'm sure it is what I think. Who did this to you, lady?" He asks as though he needs the identity of the one he is determined to hate.

It was her king, on the night she was remade. "My name is Tauriel."

Kili refuses to be diverted, even if some of the ice melts from his voice. "Who did this to you, Tauriel?"

She's never heard her name spoken with such reverence. "It was a long time ago. I can scarcely remember."

He covers the mark with his palm; then, not satisfied, bends to puts hot, open-mouthed kisses there until Tauriel squirms so hard she forgets her shame.

"Your beard is rough," she says, though her hands cupping his head belie the complaint.

"Your skin is so fine." Breathing deep, he chases her scent with his tongue, trailing up to part her folds and devote his mouth to her pleasure.

He's attuned to her in a way that is startling, giving what she needs almost before she knows she needs it. He teases her slow and tireless, maddeningly soft until unintelligible pleas spill from her lips and she thinks she can bear no more. Only then does he let her come apart writhing on his tongue.

While the delicious tremors are still chasing through her, Kili sits up, digging an arm beneath her waist to haul her into his lap. She takes him in with a merciless roll of her hips, gratified when he rests his temple against hers, groaning her name.

Tauriel nips the throat offered to her, his scarred chest and shoulders, raising red blotches near the surface but never breaking skin -- tormenting her control and igniting his blood. It's only when she pauses to admire the possessive marks that she recognizes the impulse for what it was.

He's lovely in the firelight. This is how she'll remember him, flushed and wild and every inch hers. All tenderness forgotten, he holds her hips with bruising strength, his thrusts jolting her at her core. Their mouths clash, conveying what words no longer can, and she rides out his ferocious release while taking her own.

This time, when Kili falls back, panting and spent, Tauriel sprawls on top of him, unwilling to be parted from him yet. Sweat is slick between them, and the heat rising off his body warms parts of her that have been too long chilled.

Nosing beneath his jaw causes Kili to still, his breath trapped in his chest. "Fear not, my hunter," she murmurs. "You've survived our encounter admirably."

"It was a near thing, my lady," he chuckles weakly, brushing hair off her cheek with trembling fingers. "Why do you hold back?"

Because the sun nears; because she must give him up, and how could she once she's drunk of him?

Rather than answer, she draws back far enough to score a line above her breast with her nail, releasing a trickle of blood. "Drink once more."

Kili hesitates; and she realizes this is the first time she's bid him drink when he isn't glamored and fevered half out of his mind.

"Please. I would be sure your side is healed beyond danger, and your hand as well." She intends to see him to the edge of the forest before taking his memories, but she'll be reassured if he leaves her able to grip his sword.

"When you make me forget, you must do one more thing for me. Please," he echoes her. "I can't stand the thought that I might- that we might meet again, and I not know you, and in my ignorance try to harm you."

"We are unlikely to meet again -- outside your dreams."

"If we do -- if, somehow, I managed to find you-"

"Find me?"

"-I would not be subject to your will." Kili takes her hand, weaving their fingers together. "I can't allow it to happen. When you make me forget, command me also to avoid the forest _and its pull._ Say it just like that."

"I'll say it," Tauriel promises. She'd already thought to forbid him from the mountain. His kin might ignore all warnings and meet their deaths there, but she will spare him even if it means making the place so repulsive to him that he sickens to set foot inside. "Now drink. I would see you safely away before-" She would not tell him if he would not forget. "Before I'm weakened by the sun."

He nods. "I had wondered if that was true of your kind, and I would not have you out and weakened on my account." Bending, he catches her spilled blood before lapping at the gash.

It's strange that any act could be more intimate than what they've just done, but somehow this is. She cards fingers through his hair and strokes down the line of his spine, confused by her conflicting wants. She would comfort and succor him; use him roughly and to exhaustion; mark him; watch him beg at her feet or torment him by kneeling at his. It's a meager consolation to hold him far longer than she should, both of them gentle and pensive.

Finally he rouses to murmur, "How quickly you heal," exploring the unbroken skin where her gash had been.

Not as quickly as she should. She hasn't drunk her fill in too long. "My blessing comes at a cost you well know."

Raising his face, Kili stretches at the last to brush a kiss on her temple rather than her lips. "If things were different-"

"They aren't."

"But if they were..."

"Don't. It must be enough that my body will remember your touch long after you've forgotten -- even after you've departed this world."

He nods and presses her close, sighing into her hair.

"The sun. We must-"

"I know, I know. Every sunrise I see after this, every breathtaking vista and moonless night sky, I'll want to remember you. I think the significance will stay with me even if I can't understand why."

"There's something else should stay with you. You've had enough of my blood-"

Kili looks at her sharply.

"Not enough to _change_ you. I'd have to drain you unto death for that. But you've had enough that any hurts you take will heal easier, for a while. I don't know how long it will last, so try not to depend on it."

His laugh is tight and a little desperate. "That's not advice I'll remember, so I make no promises. Let's hope I don't find myself in a position to notice."

"Yes." She hates to remind him again, "The sun." Somewhere, it has just begun to crawl above the horizon, but she won't admit that. There's time yet before its light penetrates the forest, and she'll hide her great weariness from him until then.

They rise to dress, taking opposite sides of the cave, neither looking at the other. She's fastening her cloak when he steps behind her, circling her in his arms. Tauriel knows she should pull away, but the strength to do so has fled her. Instead she turns, watching him gravely, and sees his resolve crumble. She knows what he'll do before he moves, parts her lips to let him devour her mouth; and then they're yanking at clothes, a concerted fumble to rid themselves of no more than necessary to join once more.

Kili's kisses make her dizzy. She might fall if he wasn't there to hold her up, steady enough for them both as he takes her weight and slides into her. It's too rushed but good all the same. His nearness eases sun's influence a little, though she still clings to him when they're done, drained and lethargic, barely aware of him righting her clothes for her.

"If things were different," he begins, shifting her so that she's tucked against his chest, and waits for her to interrupt.

"Yes?" she whispers.

"I wouldn't let you go. To start, I'd carry you by the fire, curl up and watch over your sleep. This is the sun's work, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I tarried not realizing how strongly it would take you."

"I knew and tarried anyway." Lifting her head is a mistake, first because it pounds anew, and then because her gaze only rises as far as his throat. His pulse is nearly jumping out of his skin, or so it seems to her, and there's no denying her answering thirst. Fangs exposed and seeking, she tries to escape from his arms, even if it means slithering to the ground.

"Tauriel."

"Let me go. Give me space."

Kili does release her -- only to pull open his shirt, baring the dip of his neck and one strong collarbone. "Drink, if it will help you."

"I'm warning you, hunter."

"I'm not afraid."

Oh, he should be. She can't be gentle any more than she can resist her need. There's no will left in her to fight.

He smears her lips with his thumb, caresses the length of one fang. "Do it. Complete this thing started between us."

She turns and sinks her fangs in his flesh, the hoarse cry torn from him drowned out by his frenzied pulse. His life floods her mouth as her knees buckle. Kili can barely stay upright, let alone continue supporting her; she'll gain back some of her strength, but not enough and not in time. They slide to the ground, Tauriel latched to his throat and Kili half in her lap.

True to his word, he doesn't taste of fear. Bad enough that he should see her basest instincts revealed; she would hate it if he shrank from her, especially knowing he had every reason to. Instead he clutches at her, rambling as he did when fevered, the foreign words oddly ardent. He trembles in her arms, yet still manages to cradle the back of her skull with one broad hand, the other twined in her hair.

If not fear, then perhaps it's his innate gift that lends his blood a sublime quality. Perhaps it's that he's also drunk of her. Whatever the cause, every swallow heightens her awareness of him, until they're as two creatures bound by one soaring heartbeat. She's hit by a fresh stab of pleasure, so animalistic that she first mistakes it for her own, but it's his.

Startled, she gentles her mouth for a moment before suckling hard enough to make Kili sob her name. It's the proof she needs to know she'll not truly damage him. She'd feared to lose control, to lose herself in her thirst, but it won't happen while his presence remains pervasive and grounding. For him, it must be the opposite. If the mingled hurt and bliss washing over her is an echo of what he feels, then he must be drowning.

All at once he thrashes and shoves her away. It takes her longer to swim out of his panic and notice the clatter from the cave's entrance.

Figures spill in, bristling with weapons. At first they appear only as silhouettes to her, the light of their torches more harsh than it should be. She is dazed, still caught in the elation of feeding as she's plunged into Kili's dread.

"Kili!" One figure surges forward -- or tries to, held back by a tall brute of a man. Tauriel catches a glint of gold and recognizes the fair-haired brother, Fili. "Release him, hag!"

"Stay behind me." Kili leaves her no choice, stumbling to his feet, arms spread to shield her with his body. He hadn't yet belted on his sword, else she suspects he'd have it bare in hand. Raising his voice, he says, "Stop! Fili, Thorin, stop and let me explain. It's not what you think." Too late he realizes how he must look and presses his palm over the weeping fang marks at his throat, but it only succeeds in stoking his kin's wrath.

"You cannot think to protect that fiend," the brother growls. "She attacked you; she was _draining_ you."

"She wouldn't- I _let_ her. She saved my life."

Tauriel stands, staying huddled behind Kili, if only to keep him close every last moment that she can. It doesn't matter that she can fix her appearance for the others, make herself small and frail -- conceal her fangs and blood-smeared face -- Kili's savaged neck is all the evidence they need.

The leader of the hunters steps forward, his features craggy and expression murderous. It can only be the uncle, Oakenshield, with his huge sword strapped to his back, a simple sharpened spear in his hand. "Pay no mind to what he says. He's clearly bewitched."

"I am not! Not anymore. If not for Tauriel's kindness I would have surely died. Fili, you saw how grave my wound was. Tell him!"

"Kili." She stills him with a hand placed on his back, bends briefly to rest her forehead against his nape. "Whatever happens, know that I regret nothing."

"No, I swear no one will touch you while I remain standing."

Tauriel takes a count of her adversaries. Apart from the brother and uncle and brute there are four others, and possibly more outside. At full strength she would be hard pressed to break free from the cave. Her bow is beyond reach, leaving her knives; and she would prefer not to kill the brother at least, though he will have no such compunctions.

"Laddie, come away from there," one hunter says gently. "You're not in your right mind." He's long of beard and white of hair but grips a heavy mace like it's an extension of his arm. A blow from such a weapon wouldn't kill her, but it would do enough damage to stun her until a spear could find her heart.

"I don't want to hurt you, Balin."

The scarred brute laughs darkly. "You won't."

"Stay to the plan, and don't let her look you in the eye," the uncle warns, giving wordless signals that cause Kili to tense. The last flick of his hand unleashes his hunters, brute and brother charging Kili while two others circle for Tauriel. The rest block the entrance.

It's not a fair fight. Unarmed, Kili might still stand a chance against Fili, as neither seems inclined to truly hurt the other; but the brute hangs back and lets the brothers grapple, using the distraction to position himself, and casually leans over Fili to smash Kili in the side of the head. Kili staggers and is wrestled to the ground, where he disappears beneath the others, flailing and cursing and-

"The bugger _bit_ me!"

"Kili, Kili stop."

"Grab his- No, I've got his arm pinned now. Get his legs."

Tauriel wouldn't mind burying her knife between the brute's shoulder blades, but the pair of hunters stalking her slowly press her deeper into the cave. Each wields a weapon with a much greater reach than hers, engaging her defenses and striking at her exposed flank in turn. Neither will risk looking higher than her waist, but they don't need to. She's reminded of the brothers' practiced coordination as she spins away from a glancing hit, and knows she'll soon run out of room to maneuver. They've nearly cornered her as intended.

No, they've herded her away from Kili. There's nothing between her and the uncle now, nothing to thwart his aim as he hurls his spear across the cave, catching her square in the breast.

She spotted the danger too late, tensing just in time for the force of the throw to slam her into the wall. Tauriel crumples, thinking in a haze, _So this is how I am to die._

"No! _Tauriel!"_

She lied. There is a regret, that Kili should witness her end.

"Shh, lad, it's over," one of her pursuers says, the white-beard. "It's done."

Is it? The pain is tremendous, to be sure, but the blow must have missed her heart. It seems impossible. Where is the spear? Is she lying on it? Did it rip clean through her?

"That was a fine throw," someone says.

"Clean and quick," the brute agrees. "A kinder end then she'd have given any of us."

She's sprawled face down, tangled in her hair with grit stuck to her, unable to see. When she expands her other senses she finds she can pinpoint each hunter -- and more, tell them apart. It's White-Beard to her left, his breathing deliberate and stance relaxed. The brute crouches to the side of the fire, Fili sitting beside him. The two at the cave entrance shift uneasily.

Kili has broken free and is scrambling to her, mostly on his knees, his anguish choking her as if it was her own. The uncle follows, his tread confident and inexorable as a landslide.

She might do something, anything, if she could overcome the crushing pain in her chest. Absent is the hot scent of her own blood, and she cannot comprehend why that might be. The spear did strike her.

"Tauriel. Tauriel..."

Kili reaches her and rolls her over; and she realizes he is careful to block her from view of the others. His expression is stricken and determined at once as he touches her brow, her cheek, not for confirmation but assurance.

He knew. Somehow he knew the blow hadn't killed her.

When she tries to rise, Kili presses her shoulder down in warning, then moves on, searching her breast... for what? What does he imagine he can do for her? The uncle comes to inspect his handiwork and will surely finish her off.

Where are her knives? Grasping about, she encounters only a long splinter of wood.

Kili yanks at the fastenings of her hunting leathers until he can open her tunic enough to slide his hand over her heart. His touch lightens the pain, though she must be numb, for she cannot feel him as she should. Whatever he discovers elicits a small, strangled cry, which she alone might know for a sound of relief.

The weight constricting her chest finally makes sense when she lifts her hand and Kili guides it inside her tunic with his, showing her his inadvertent gift. Her skin is wrong, too smooth and utterly unyielding.

Stone. The spear _shattered_ when it struck her.

"How...?" Oakenshield looms above them, shock slackening his features.

Kili's wondrous smile vanishes almost before it forms. "Uncle-"

"Stay back, all of you," Oakenshield barks, drawing his sword. Its edge seems to glitter with its own hard light; but steel will not avail him. He has made the mistake of staring into Tauriel's face.

Perhaps it is his surprise, or the blood of his blood coursing through her. Tauriel is able to hold him transfixed in her gaze while she smothers his will. He slowly lowers his sword.

Kili grasps at once what she has done and squeezes her hand, still over her heart, like a question.

"Mahal, no. Thorin!"

It is the brute who understands next. Starting forward, he drops with a cry when Oakenshield -- silent, vacant -- whirls and slashes him across the thigh.

"Stay back," Tauriel repeats, weaving what power she can into the words. She does not hold the other hunters in thrall as she does the uncle, but she might sway them; and those who resist she will coerce.

The pain of her flesh turning to stone has eased enough that she can rise, with Kili's aid. She leaves him at once, stepping to shelter at Oakenshield's back. He is taller and even more broad than his nephew, but she can still stretch up to put her bloodied mouth against his ear, whispering commands.

Mistaking her intent, the hunters gasp, knuckles white on weapons eager for her life. She is not above taunting them, yanking Oakenshield's long hair to bend his head and bare his pliant throat. "I forbid you to embrace stone, so you can tell your sister-son to put down his firepot."

"Drop it, Fili."

When he does not move fast enough, Kili warns quietly, "Fili, stand down. She has that power. Throw and you'll burn them both."

The hunters will take a new leader with Oakenshield subdued. The brute seemed likely, but no, it is the brother they look to. When he drops the pot at last, seething with frustration, an air of chagrin settles over the rest.

"Are there more outside?"

"Two," Oakenshield intones. "Bofur and the greengrocer."

"Call them in. Your whole company must understand what I am about to show them."

"Bofur! Bilbo! Come inside."

The pair enters the cave in time to witness Oakenshield reverse his sword, raising its wicked edge to his own neck.

Kili hovers at Tauriel's side, wise enough not to touch her. "My lady, please."

"Why should I spare him? He would not relent when you pleaded for _my_ life." Her voice is flinty but holds none of the fury she expected.

"Because even good men can err," Kili murmurs.

"Is he?"

"Yes. And if I am one too, I owe it in part to the man who helped raise me after my father died."

She might show mercy for Kili's sake; but the reality is that slaying the uncle here and now would guarantee her death. His fate must be put out of her hands. "Go on, show them," she whispers to Oakenshield, taking his ear between her teeth and piercing it. He deserves something to remember her by.

The brute hisses. He'll not soon forget her, either, with a fresh leg wound to fuel his grudge. "You won't escape us, bloodsucker. When I get my hands on you-"

"The woman goes free, unmolested and without chase." Oakenshield angles the sword's edge at his neck, scraping up a few dark drops of blood; his hunters freeze. "No one else leaves this cave before sundown. If any tries, or interferes with my order, know that I will cut my own throat."

She'll never hold Oakenshield so long. Her influence is already diminished by the sun, and distance will weaken it further; but with Kili's blood to combat her weakness, she might push hard enough to reach her king's defenses by the time they realize her deception.

Kili retrieves Tauriel's weapons unbidden before searching out his sword. Belting it on, he takes a waterskin off his brother after a brief, near-wordless yet heated exchange.

Oakenshield says, "The order includes you, Kili."

"What?" Kili's head snaps up, his gaze instantly finding Tauriel across the cave. "My lady, I should accompany you."

"It is impossible. I go where you cannot follow."

He is undeterred, obstinately so, taking a stance that anchors him to the ground as if he was a tree sending down roots. "As far as I'm able, then. Let me see you safely-"

"Your debt is repaid, stone man. There is nothing left between us."

Kili flinches at her words but does not contradict the lie.

She will not say farewell; he would refuse it. Nor will she tell him to live a good life. He will do so regardless. Instead she says, "Do not enter the mountain, lest you encounter that foe can turn your gift against you. No pale, unearthly guardian could spare you from that fate."

The warning was not meant as a distraction but it succeeds all the same. Kili strides to her. "What fate? What do you mean?"

Raising her cloak's hood, she prepares to battle the sun. Oakenshield shadows her to the cave entrance, the other men shying out of their path. Only Kili dares follow her to the threshold.

She tells herself she won't turn back; and when she does, she tells herself she won't look at him.

"Tauriel."

She can think of nothing to say to drive the hope from his eyes that she might not come to regret, so she merely inclines her head. If he makes a reply she does not see it. Pulling her cloak about her, she slips into the trees.

 

 


End file.
